Anthony Stadlen is an existential psychotherapist, family therapist, supervisor and teacher working in London. See the page (below, right) "What are existential psychotherapy and family therapy?" Anthony Stadlen is also founder and convenor of the Inner Circle Seminars: an international, interdisciplinary, ethical, existential, phenomenological search for truth in psychotherapy. See posts (below, left) for details of past and future seminars. Contact: +44(0)20 8888 6857 or stadlen@aol.com.

David Cooper died 20 years ago, on 29 July 1986. His legendary ‘anti-hospital’ for young ‘schizophrenics’, Villa 21, had died 20 years earlier, in 1966. Shenley Hospital renamed it Villa 20A, and there would never again be a Villa 21 until the hospital itself closed at the end of the twentieth century. Theodore Dalrymple recently called Cooper’s books ‘worthless’. Laing and Esterson disliked them. Szasz wrote (1978): ‘Cooper is often wrong-headed, but he is honest. Laing is level-headed, but is he ever honest?’ Today, we examine Cooper’s writings. Anthony Stadlen also reflects on his own work with Cooper in Villa 21 (1965–6); on the Dialectics of Liberation Congress (1967) and the ‘Anti-University’ (1967–8) which Cooper master-minded; and on Cooper’s later activities. We attempt a balanced evaluation. Your participation in the discussion is welcome.